Ordo Sinister
! PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ANY ADDITIONAL CHANGES OR EDITS! BY ORDER OF THE INQUISITION!!!]] will]] The ''Ordo Sinister'', known formally as the ''Titanicus Terranic Ordo Sinister'', is an elite Divisio Militaris Titan Legion of the Collegia Titanica, one of the military arms of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Ordo Sinister is known by the informal cognomen "The Left Hand of the Emperor" and the "Nightmare Titans", and is considered one of the most covert and macabre of all the Imperium's agencies of war and political control. During the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras, this Titan Legion was known to employ weapons of such hidden terror and secrecy, such as the ''Warlord-Sinister'' Pattern Battle Psi-Titan, that few even within the Imperium's hierarchy suspected their existence. There is very little information in official Imperial records about this Titan Legion, including when it was founded. Legion History The forces of the Great Crusade were myriad in nature, and as the Remembrancers were wont to style them, "...as numberless as the stars themselves." This is only befitting, as the task for which the vast host of the Imperialis Militarum was conceived and embodied was for no less than the staggeringly incomprehensible goal of the domination of the entire galaxy. This required weapons and warriors as diverse as uncounted Pioneer corps of indentured labourers, hundreds of thousands strong, to the superhuman might of the Legiones Astartes, a purpose-created gene-crafted fighting force greater than any in history. The will and reason of the Emperor divined and designed for the Great Crusade in effect a weapon and a warrior for every conceivable form of war, and even those inconceivable until they had to be fought -- unhallowed wars against powers and horrors beyond human imagining and beyond merely human endurance. One such dark creation, an experiment perhaps in weaponry long forbidden, and carried out not by any Mechanicum Archimandrite nor by Strategos Magister, but by the hand of the Emperor Himself, led to the creation of the Ordo Sinister. Forbidden to All Save One The exact genesis of the experiments which led to the creation of the Ordo Sinister is difficult to pin down by scholarly observers in latter ages. As with almost all that began in the prohibited vaults of the Emperor's own laboratory complex beneath the Imperial Palace on Terra, its nature remains sealed by time and by the destruction that was to follow. Such records that do remain within the Martian Mechanicum however, who, given the nature of the Ordo Sinister's origins, were seriously perturbed by the project -- or more accurately their exclusion from it -- do evidence certain speculations that it was arrived at either as a tangent of what was to become the Emperor's Greater Work in the control and manipulation of the psyker factor in human evolution, or as a direct attempt to develop esoteric weaponry on the macro scale to combat certain encountered menaces which had proven terrible in the cost of their destruction. These menaces, such as the Enslaver Alpha-incursions, the Rangdan Osseivores and the Hellespont Void-forms, all of which had taken the lives of millions of soldiers and thousands of star vessels to combat, and had broken whole Expeditionary fleets and Titan Legions in the past, were menaces to which no sure counter existed save that of Exterminatus. The purpose of what became the Ordo Sinister was the battlefield employment of macro-level weaponry of terrible potency and of a nature which was expressly forbidden to any within the Imperium, be they Primarch or Planetary Governor, on pain of death. These were weapons born of the Dark Age of Technology and perhaps ancient relics of civilisations which had risen and fallen before life had even begun on primeval Terra, weapons forbidden to all but those under the Emperor's direct shadow and control, and even then only under the greatest possible conditions of secrecy and failsafe. The 'Ordo Sinister' was the cadre of set up to build, maintain and use these weapons, classed as their name suggests as '''Sinistrum. this word has long stood as the Terran tech-arcana classification for prohibited technologies designed to artificially amplify or weaponise the psyker's gift, usually at the cost of the psyker themself, body or mind, and examples, such as the Culexine-shackles used by the narco-enslaved psyker covens of the Caucasus Wastes subjugated by the Emperor during the Unification Wars, had long since been bywords for the evils of the Dark Age of Technology. The Oblation It is not known just how long the Ordo had existed in the Emperor's shadow, but their first prominence came during 967.M30 when a Writ of Compulsion was issued by the Emperor requiring the deliverance of a grand total of twenty-five fully operational Battle Titans of the Warlord-class to the Vault Imperialis, in perpetuity. This extraordinary request caused a strong reaction in the Mechanicum hierarchy, splitting it between those who fervently considered the Emperor to be the living incarnation of the Omnissiah, and therefore immediately entitled to any of His servant's works, and those who saw with a more political eye, deeming the demand to be a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Treaty of Mars which bound the Mechanicum to the Imperium and guaranteed its rights. To this latter group, the spectre of potential Titan Legions being formed without the sacred imprint of the Mechanicum at their inception or control was the start of the end of Mars' independence. Schism threatened but after an audience between the Fabricator-General and the Emperor, the colossal demand was met and any further open malcontent within the Machine Cult's ranks over the issue was suppressed, though what ill-feeling remained in secret can only be speculated upon in light of later events. Mars herself bore the brunt of the burden, deliver eight Warlords from her reserve, while new production and requisitions from the Forge Worlds of Metalica, Pharon, Arachnus, Caradryn Magna and Voss made up the rest. The transfer was viewed as a crime by some and a blessing by others, but of this event, or the Oblation, as the followers of the Machine Cult named it, nothing would come to pass for several years, the god-engines swallowed up as if without trace on Terra despite their scale and power. Twenty-five of the most powerful war machines ever fashioned by humanity simply vanished. The King of Terrors The Witch-Idol of Magc'Sithraal The Ordo Sinister in the Modern Age The Ordo Sinister continues to function as an elite special purpose Titan Legion. Comprised of an unknown number of Battle Titans under the command of the renowned Grand Master Ferromort, the purpose of the Ordo Sinister is simple -- to inspire terror and obedience in those who are in danger of disrupting the Pax Imperium, to lend the weight of steel to the words of the Mechanicus' ruling Magi. In this respect the Ordo often works in conjunction with the Adeptus Arbites, the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy, providing transport and fire support for their ground troops in innumerable short, vicious campaigns. The carefully planned assaults of Grand Master Ferromort are famous for their precision and flawless execution. Great pains are taken to use the Legion as an example of impersonal and faceless Imperial efficiency. In persuading truculent Planetary Governors to submit to the Imperial will the Ordo Sinister has destroyed hundreds of supposedly impregnable fortresses and allegedly unassailable palaces. However, this Titan Legion remains an instrument of precision for the Imperium – a well-honed sabre rather than the sledgehammer of a planetary bombardment or the scalpel of a Space Marine intervention. The Deeds of the Ordo Sinister Notable Campaigns *'Retallus IV Campaign (Unknown Date)' - On the ancient Ork planet of Retallus IV a WAAAGH! on a colossal scale gathered pace as hundreds of Mekboyz directed the labour of thousands of human slaves in order to raise the towering forms of gigantic Mega Gargants over the Retallus IV's desolate plains, and, inspired by this effort and the promise of war, countless Greenskins rallied to the world in preparation for this crusade. The Imperium was determined to not let this happen, and by the Emperor's direct order, the twelve ''Imperator''-class Titans comprising the entire strength of the Ordo Sinister were dispatched to Retallus alongside other Imperial forces, tasked to smash the WAAAGH! before the green horde spread and drowned the galaxy in blood. Imperial records sadly do not indicate what became of this force, though one can presume that it was successful. Notable Titans The Warlord-Sinister The Hereteknica of the Psi-Titan Notable Personnel *'Grand Master Ferromort' - Grand Master renowned for his precisely planned assaults and their flawless execution which contributed to the Legion's upholding of the image of impersonal and faceless Imperial efficiency. *'Grand Master Volkus' Legion Appearance Legion Colours The Ordo Sinister's colours are not listed in current Imperial records. Legion Badge The Ordo Sinister's badge is not listed in current Imperial records. Sources *''Adeptus Titanicus'' (1st Edition), pg. 13 *''Titan Legions'' (2nd Edition), pg. 10 *''Imperial Armour Apocalypse'' II, pg. 79 *''The Horus Heresy - Book Seven: Inferno'' by Alan Bligh (Forge World Series), pp. 132-139 *''White Dwarf'' 181 (UK), pg. 19 Category:L Category:Collegia Titanica Category:Adeptus Mechanicus Category:Imperium Category:Walkers Category:Imperial Walkers